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>Most self-styled experts on developer productivity seem more interested in selling something rather than painting an accurate picture of how devs really work.

by Kranar 4y ago

>Most self-styled experts on developer productivity seem more interested in selling something rather than painting an accurate picture of how devs really work. Says a blog post from a CTO who sells a product to track software productivity.

huihiuhui 4y ago
You must have the wrong company. "Sourcegraph is a web-based code search and navigation tool for dev teams. Search, navigate, and review code."
slimsag 4y ago
(I'm an engineer at Sourcegraph, but otherwise share your healthy skepticism of companies in general) For what it's worth, I don't think that's accurate. I've worked closely with the team that builds Code Insights, and at pretty much every point they've been vehemently opposed to exposing any metrics that could ever be used to track/monitor devs. On the contrary I've actually heard most use cases of it in companies are actually devs themselves showing leadership/management clear graphs of "look, code quality here is getting worse, we need more time in sprints to improve this" Anyway, just my take, not commenting in any official capacity.
- johnnymorgan 4y ago
  Blend that in with some product intelligence to manage stackholders and booya, a solid nice product/dev integration. Quality of user stories and product cycle would be interesting to see as it has a direct impact on dev quality (ie how much do they have to guess versus cleanly mapped out). It's pretty cool and I see where you are going with it.
beyang 4y ago
Sourcegraph CTO (and author of the post) here. There's no part of our product that seeks to track software productivity? We do have a feature (https://about.sourcegraph.com/code-insights https://about.sourcegraph.com/code-insights) built around code search that lets devs define their own metrics around things like progress of big migrations and anti-patterns + code smells. This tweet is a good summary of my philosophy around code-related metrics: https://twitter.com/beyang/status/1524259425451577344 https://twitter.com/beyang/status/1524259425451577344. Insights from treating code as data are best discovered by the people who know the dataset through and through—i.e., developers. Another project we've released in this vein is https://codestat.dev https://codestat.dev, built on top of Comby (incidentally also on the HN front page right now), which was created by a member of our team, Rijnard, as part of his PhD thesis on automatic program transformation. We're developers by trade and by heart, and are motivated by making tools and mental models that devs actually find useful and that boost the creative spark of coding. If there's something we can improve about our product or message to further this mission, I'd love to hear your feedback!
- _ktx2 4y ago
  I think you're getting some snark because corporations are firing up a renewed interest in these kinds of metrics and as part of that they're starting with all the old ones (and motivations) that didn't work. Your messaging was fine, and your product has a clear audience (developers), this is just the fallout of industry bad behavior.
  - beliu 4y ago
    This is really important to call out. There have been a lot of really bad practices in the past that try to reduce "developer productivity" to something that approximates a widget factory, and the results have been awful for both developers and companies. This feeds right into the last section of the post, "If we don't talk about developer productivity, someone else will"—we need more developer voices advocating for the creative spark of building software.
- dnndev 4y ago
  What is your product for me as a developer?
  - beliu 4y ago
    World's best code search: https://sourcegraph.com/search https://sourcegraph.com/search Analyze code as data: https://sourcegraph.com/insights https://sourcegraph.com/insights Interactive docs you'll actually use: https://sourcegraph.com/notebooks https://sourcegraph.com/notebooks Take the pain out of large-scale refactors: https://sourcegraph.com/batch-changes https://sourcegraph.com/batch-changes IDE superpowers in code reviews: https://docs.sourcegraph.com/integration/browser_extension https://docs.sourcegraph.com/integration/browser_extension
    - dnndev 4y ago
      Thanks for the links. Looks like a nice utility belt for devs who want to be productive. Most orgs kill productivity and creativity with lack of compensation, treating them like a code farm, or mediocre peers. Devs choose to be productive in different environments, most of the time it’s simple, step aside and let the dev do more than code. Talk to a client (yes! It’s not as crazy as it sounds). Show appreciation with bonuses not a seasonal holiday themed ham. I think your headed in the right direction!
benhoyt 4y ago
Just my two cents as someone who isn't associated with Sourcegraph: I also thought this comment was overly snarky and not exactly true. Their main product is a really good code search/navigation tool, and even Code Insights is hardly "tracking" software productivity. See also "don't be snarky" in the HN guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

by Kranar 4y ago

huihiuhui 4y ago

You must have the wrong company. "Sourcegraph is a web-based code search and navigation tool for dev teams. Search, navigate, and review code."

slimsag 4y ago

(I'm an engineer at Sourcegraph, but otherwise share your healthy skepticism of companies in general) For what it's worth, I don't think that's accurate. I've worked closely with the team that builds Code Insights, and at pretty much every point they've been vehemently opposed to exposing any metrics that could ever be used to track/monitor devs. On the contrary I've actually heard most use cases of it in companies are actually devs themselves showing leadership/management clear graphs of "look, code quality here is getting worse, we need more time in sprints to improve this" Anyway, just my take, not commenting in any official capacity.

johnnymorgan 4y ago
Blend that in with some product intelligence to manage stackholders and booya, a solid nice product/dev integration. Quality of user stories and product cycle would be interesting to see as it has a direct impact on dev quality (ie how much do they have to guess versus cleanly mapped out). It's pretty cool and I see where you are going with it.

beyang 4y ago

Sourcegraph CTO (and author of the post) here. There's no part of our product that seeks to track software productivity? We do have a feature (https://about.sourcegraph.com/code-insights https://about.sourcegraph.com/code-insights) built around code search that lets devs define their own metrics around things like progress of big migrations and anti-patterns + code smells. This tweet is a good summary of my philosophy around code-related metrics: https://twitter.com/beyang/status/1524259425451577344 https://twitter.com/beyang/status/1524259425451577344. Insights from treating code as data are best discovered by the people who know the dataset through and through—i.e., developers. Another project we've released in this vein is https://codestat.dev https://codestat.dev, built on top of Comby (incidentally also on the HN front page right now), which was created by a member of our team, Rijnard, as part of his PhD thesis on automatic program transformation. We're developers by trade and by heart, and are motivated by making tools and mental models that devs actually find useful and that boost the creative spark of coding. If there's something we can improve about our product or message to further this mission, I'd love to hear your feedback!

_ktx2 4y ago
I think you're getting some snark because corporations are firing up a renewed interest in these kinds of metrics and as part of that they're starting with all the old ones (and motivations) that didn't work. Your messaging was fine, and your product has a clear audience (developers), this is just the fallout of industry bad behavior.
- beliu 4y ago
  This is really important to call out. There have been a lot of really bad practices in the past that try to reduce "developer productivity" to something that approximates a widget factory, and the results have been awful for both developers and companies. This feeds right into the last section of the post, "If we don't talk about developer productivity, someone else will"—we need more developer voices advocating for the creative spark of building software.
dnndev 4y ago
What is your product for me as a developer?
- beliu 4y ago
  World's best code search: https://sourcegraph.com/search https://sourcegraph.com/search Analyze code as data: https://sourcegraph.com/insights https://sourcegraph.com/insights Interactive docs you'll actually use: https://sourcegraph.com/notebooks https://sourcegraph.com/notebooks Take the pain out of large-scale refactors: https://sourcegraph.com/batch-changes https://sourcegraph.com/batch-changes IDE superpowers in code reviews: https://docs.sourcegraph.com/integration/browser_extension https://docs.sourcegraph.com/integration/browser_extension
  - dnndev 4y ago
    Thanks for the links. Looks like a nice utility belt for devs who want to be productive. Most orgs kill productivity and creativity with lack of compensation, treating them like a code farm, or mediocre peers. Devs choose to be productive in different environments, most of the time it’s simple, step aside and let the dev do more than code. Talk to a client (yes! It’s not as crazy as it sounds). Show appreciation with bonuses not a seasonal holiday themed ham. I think your headed in the right direction!

benhoyt 4y ago

Just my two cents as someone who isn't associated with Sourcegraph: I also thought this comment was overly snarky and not exactly true. Their main product is a really good code search/navigation tool, and even Code Insights is hardly "tracking" software productivity. See also "don't be snarky" in the HN guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html